A cynical moment… brought to you by the Beergonaut

You know when the protagonist arrives to the long anticipated mystical village or the enchanted forest populated with all sorts of creatures and tree houses, or when he arrives at his destination somewhere a hundred years into the future. In novels, these moments are usually described in 50 pages but in a Hollywood blockbuster movie, all the precious details that make the sceneries blossom get crammed in a 4 minutes scene.

That was my 4 minutes walk from the C to the B Concourse of the Minneapolis-St-Paul Airport today. I, the protagonist in my exciting novel based on my not-so-exciting life, walked through a land of eye-candy, a jungle of ADD where so much was happening all at once, it made our world seemed ridiculous. The walkway to the B concourse is lined with shops and restaurants that just screamed for attention and in the middle of it all was a woman getting a professional foot massage, a policeman on a bicycle, a lady playing a huge harp, a magician pulling ribbons out of his ass, and in this ocean of retail outlets, sat a Harley Davidson. Folks, I’ve been in marketing long enough to tell you that I can’t see one pertinent reason why Harley should take on the airport market. Somebody needs to explain this to me. The only thing missing was a flame thrower, Chewbacca, Cyborgs and a circus troop of little people wrestlers.

Forgive my cynical moment for a bit but it seems as though we’ve come too long a way from killing an animal and bringing it back to the cave for supper. We passed the humble exit a long time ago, my friends. Look at us with our foot massages, cell phones, beer blogs, vendor approval processes, golf carts and cheeseburgers. It’s almost as if we have something to prove, question is, to who… animals? We keep pushing the boundaries of marketing, technology, consumerism, culinary, psychology and everything else we can get our paws on like it’s imperative that we show the animal kingdom how we’re the boss. Newsflash folks, we won that debate a long time ago when we gained the ability to stand-up, to walk straight, to loose our tail, to not drink out of puddles and use language. Now we’re just being pretentious and arrogant.

So, in a moment of weakness, when all seemed a little too much like I was a protagonist from 1967 visiting the 2014 future, I stopped, looked around, found my flight on a device called a flat screen TV, turned to my left and resumed my walk to the B concourse. Once at my destination, I let the cynicism dissipate by doing what every cynical man would, I grabbed a cheeseburger.

Welcome to our world of decadence, sponsored in part by Bud, Sony and Target, broadcasted live on CNN, monitored by the TSA, the HLS and the WTF and of course, with Tom Cruise as our spokesperson. God help us. 🙂